


Carlyle Philosophe, or the Consequences of Virtue

by Lscholar



Category: Terra Ignota - Ada Palmer
Genre: Canon-Typical Verboseness, Catholic Guilt, Dominic-Typical BEHAVIOR, F/F? M/M? M/F? Carlyle sure doesn't know, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Guilt, Gender Hell, Obnoxious Self-Deprecation, Shameless Ideological Destruction, The Pensees of Blaise Pascal, With apologies to Ada Palmer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 04:34:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20334148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lscholar/pseuds/Lscholar
Summary: What, Mycroft, seriously, you want me to write my story? You want me to tell you of the mystic scenes of Mlle D___ P___ with the Reverend Father S___ , that I inform you of the adventures of Madame F___?You ask of a girl who has never written details which require organization? You want a tableau where the scenes of which I have spoken, or those in which we were the players, lose nothing of their lasciviousness; while the metaphysical arguments retain all their power? In truth, Mycroft, it seems to me beyond my strength. What is more, I have nothing to do with Mlle D___ P___, Father S___ was my spiritual director, I owe feelings of gratitude to the Madame, much as I hate her, and to the Mlle L___. Shall I betray the trust of people to whom I owe the greatest obligations, since it is the actions of the one and the thoughts of the other that, by degrees, have opened my eyes to the prejudices of my youth?—Terese Philosophe, with amendments by Carlyle Foster.





	1. Redactions

DIARY OF CARLYLE FOSTER

* * *

**PUBLISHED WITH PERMISSIONS OF**: Nobody. This is never to be published or even read by anyone but me, ever, unless I am compelled under Cousin or Universal Romanovan Law (The set of Laws colloquially referred to as Black or Gray Laws) to provide relevant passages or dead. I retain my right of redaction. In the event of my death, this account is to be provided after a period of 10 days to those members of the Ecclefechan bash’ who have taken and passed the Adulthood Competency Exam, and added to the access-restricted body of evidence used by the Romanovan Suicide Prediction Algorithms.

**CERTIFIED NONPROSELYTORY BY:** Nobody. Reading this document may qualify as a Violation of the First Black Law. So please don’t.

**INTENDED AUDIENCE**: Nobody. This is filth. Don’t read it.

* * *

**Estimated Gordian Exposure Commission Content Ratings**

S5 – Explicit and protracted _sexual scenes_; references to _rape_; references to _dubiously consensual sexual actions_; graphic _sexually coded acts_ of real and living persons.

V3 – Explicit but not protracted scenes of _intentional violence_; passing reference to incidents of explicit and protracted _extreme violence_; passing reference to historical incidents of _global trauma_; reference to non-criminal _violence_ committed by real and living persons.

R6 – Explicit and protracted treatment of _religious themes_ without intent to convert; most likely with negative conversion potential. _R__eligious beliefs_ of real and living _sensayers_; [REDACTED FOR LOWER CLEARANCES] reference to Conclave-redacted _religious rituals_.

O4 – Tremendously offensive opinions likely to cause_ offense_ to selected groups and to the sensibilities of many; subject matter likely to cause _distress_ or _offense_ to the same. Sensayer-atypical Antagonist-Advocation techniques used. I’m sorry. Don’t read this. It’s really quite egregiously disgusting.

* * *

**Estimated Utopian Secure Containment Protocols**

**Object Class** KETER

**Threat Level** ORANGE [Cognitohazardous Memeplex [VV]]

**Memeplex Vector:**

Primary: Social interaction with individuals connected to the institution known as [REDACTED].

Secondary: Exposure to pre-Church War cultural mores and media.

**Memeplex Virality:** Unknown. High contamination levels.

**Memeplex Virulence**: Highly distressing; dangerous to society. Non-fatal but makes me want to die.

* * *

I hereby declare my Sensayer’s right to access these documents waived and invalid insofar as I have that ability until such time as this statement is retracted or a period of ten years has passed, whichever comes first.

**ADDENDUM:** Sensayer Dominic Seneschal, I know you have all kinds of ridiculous clearances. Please don’t use them. In exchange for your considerate respect of my boundaries, I am willing to make certain concessions regarding gender.


	2. I.

It was the twenty-eighth of June 2454, a day upon which I did not honor my Creator. I rose weak and miserable; choked down the meal substitute drink Julia had insisted I keep around because of how thin I was getting and thought about Julia and cried.

Three of my bash’mates left me tracker alerts. Wren caught me in the hallway as I was leaving for Madame’s, eyes blotchy, with my hands knotted in the scarf Dominic had given me last session. I told them I had a car coming, which wasn’t a lie exactly, and they asked if they could ride with me.

I asked the system to set me down a short walk away from Madame’s before I agreed.

They didn’t say anything for the whole trip, just held my hand. I felt like a child again.

How could I do this to them? We’d grown up together; two Fosters in the same bash’ who’d stuck together into adulthood.

But running through my head was the thought that I really don’t deserve them, or any of my other bash’mates, friends, or parents; that if I’d had a troubled childhood instead of a wonderful one I might at least have had an excuse. By pushing the chain of responsibility a few links back I might have had a Reason, and Free Will might have been restored. I really thought parentage didn’t matter, but it just didn’t matter in the way I thought it did. I’m as Madame’s as Dominic or Heloise; allowed to roam free in the world so some client might have the sick pleasure of catching me and bringing me back.

The whole situation is too perfect.

Bridger and Jehovah; Dominic and Martin; Tullus Hostilius cries war as the Horatii raise their swords upon the fulcrum of Alba Longa. BABYLON THE GREAT, THE PARENT OF THOSE WHO SELL THEIR BODIES AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH, is the one holding our world together. Our foreparents built Romanova after the city of seven hills and now a beast with a blasphemous name rises out of the sea, Seven-Headed and Ten-Crowned.

> And I saw one of their heads as it were wounded to death; and their deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
> 
> And they [The peoples of the Earth] worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with them?
> 
> And there was given unto them a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto them to continue forty and two months.
> 
> And they opened their mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
> 
> And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
> 
> And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship them, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

And then:

> And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. [Two “horns” which appear innocent but Carlyle you still know your Christian iconography.]
> 
> And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
> 
> And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
> 
> And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
> 
> And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. [Can’t be a coincidence. Mycroft must have known this – but how does Sniper fit???].
> 
> And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: [Remakers? Hiveguard?]
> 
> And that no person might buy or sell, save one that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the [etc. Economic sanctions?]

All these symmetries are made known. The Watchmaker moves, and here I am as an undeniably direct result, a wreck who can’t even get over his disgusting fetish long enough to pay attention to the single most important event in all of human history. Well, I longed for Intervention and I got it.

I hate this. I hate this so, so much.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget just how much I hate it but I’m going to write it down anyway and hope it makes me feel better even though it probably won’t.

As a Sensayer, I know the scientific origins of purity intuitions and the ways they interact with belief systems. That makes it worse. I know I shouldn’t be doing this; I know I shouldn’t want this.

Here is a list of things I hate that I don’t hate as much as I hate this stupid penny-dreadful plot that my life’s become: cold tea; mint in salads; the sick Cannerite “sermons” that all boil down to “Mycroft Canner did horrible things; weren’t they so cool! We understand the Divine as an intrusion of something alien into our lives; let us worship something we have no desire to understand or prevent, and let us never adhere to any moral, immoral, or amoral tenet or precept that might cause us to have to stick our necks out for any reason or take any kind of stand, so that our worship is transparently about the idolization of the disgusting and horrible acts of the kind of vile reprehensible figure who, self-aware, made the conscious choice to murder and rape and eat their victims,” even if the Cannerites themselves are merely misguided in ways that make them hard to hate; bash’-loss, which I have dedicated my life to repairing.

And yet this hate is familiar. It’s the hatred I hold for Madame F___ and Mycroft-who-was and Blaise Pascal.

Fuck Pascal. (Not rape, no; fuck them unsatisfied with a lover they once held dear. Fuck them; shove their face in the rotting carcass of their relationships! Pascal loved only themself, so let them lie alone and unfulfilled, burdened with the flame of unquenchable desire.)

They were so close! They beheld the incomprehensible nature of humanity, which produces Mycroft Canners and Mertice McKays. Their Wager is—it’s like Schrodinger’s Cat or Russell’s Teapot; a rhetorical device meant to expose logic and faith that later generations misinterpreted. “Endeavour,” they say, in the very next paragraph, “then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God,” thereby evincing their clear understanding that any understanding (or renunciation) of Purpose must begin with the Divine, but then! right afterwards: People should just act like Pascal says even if they don’t believe them; this will make them stupid; dull and beastly (_vous abetira) and that is beneficial_. With what but wit, Pascal, did you construct your arguments?

This next bit always gets me.

> I admire the boldness with which these persons undertake to speak of God. In addressing their argument to infidels, their first chapter is to prove Divinity from the works of nature. I should not be astonished at their enterprise, if they were addressing their argument to the faithful; for it is certain that those who have the living faith in their heart see at once that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, and in whom we purpose to rekindle it, persons destitute of faith and grace, who, seeking with all their light whatever they see in nature that can bring them to this knowledge, find only obscurity and darkness; to tell them that they have only to look at the smallest things which surround them, and they will see God openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great and important matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to claim to have concluded the proof with such an argument, is to give them ground for believing that the proofs of our religion are very weak. And I see by reason and experience that nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt.

They don’t take this perspective themself, oh no. Pascal cannot help but “admire the boldness” of those who see and exalt in Divinity's expression in Creation, patronizing prescriptor that they are. As if every believer has fully explored their theology! As if there is nothing of the Spiritual in nature! Pascal, why should you care about those who you have already denied, with your predestination and cruelty? If yours is the one true way, why should their contempt matter? Of course it only matters because of how they set themself up: Nobody comes to the Father but through the Son, and nobody comes to either but through Pascal. Not everyone can be a Sensayer, even if sometimes I wish everyone was, but Pascal has no patience for anyone or anything soft enough for their tongue to cut.

…But that’s what I seem to want, isn’t it? To be cut open.

Like it or not, I return to Dominic.

There’s precedent. Belief can be comfortable, but I won’t ever hold comfort above devotion or knowledge. One kneels to pray to show respect, to place honor above comfort in the smallest way.

And yet. That same conviction that led Martin Luther to his _Reichstag zu Worms _drove him also to the mortification of the body. Even so many years removed, in this blessed age of peace, I cannot help but shiver at the thoughts of that knowledge which is restricted to Sensayers—at the cruel spines of the cilice; at the lash of the whip on bare skin; at the gnawing of one’s stomach crying out for food and drink.

It’s Cannerbeat; the frenzied and animalistic which draws us away from our best selves. When I don’t say animalistic I don’t mean animal in the symbolic or religious sense but in that in that which is inhumane, or too human? To cast aside one’s better nature for pain; to forsake laws and hives for black anarchy.

Dominic is a dog. I told him so and he laughed his horrible laugh and thanked me; mockingly, for stooping to his Eighteenth Century level, and sincerely, as _Canis Domini_, a hound who burns the earth pure; and then he told me that as my Sensayer I was not entitled to know his religion.

I know not what to make of this. I know what I should make of this, but I am very tired.

Certainly we of this enlightened age have cast it aside as far as we are able. Greenpeace’s marriage imposed strictures the Mitsubishi shouldered willingly; and now among our seven Hives only Humanista and MASON’s uppermost echelons insist on the legality of such barbarities.

And what has this done? 2454 has eradicated Anorexia Mirabilis, but even we are not so prescriptive as to outlaw pain, properly preregistered and monitored by tracker. Should we have been?

Julia worried for me, wanted me fed.

No. Later. It’s too harsh, too raw.

To spread knowledge of those practices would have been to invite disaster. In the wake of Mycroft’s two bloody weeks—no. Those weeks belonged to the Mardigras bash’ and were stolen from them, like their lives—it was discovered by certain parties that the Mardigras research concerned, at least partially, restricted religious materials which had been enacted as punishment upon them. No, I won’t talk around it. Crucifixion is vile; and to kill someone in such a way that their innermost beliefs are spread open for display is worse. If that golden apple Bridger were loosed into the world, people would die for them. “To the most righteous.”

I have devoted my life to repairing bash’loss and to the pursuit and cultivation of knowledge of the Divine.

But I really haven’t changed, have I? I want that apple for myself: I want to be the exception, the one who recieves the Divine; the one who breaks that sacred covenant between sensayer and sensayee; Julia’s most treasured.

That’s what I hate: that base narcissistic solipsism. Pascal and Madame F___ (What an appropriate name) and Mycroft-who-was and I all should have known better. Madame is a genius, however repugnant their actions—that monster who went through Sensayer training and learned nothing but facts, who set Kraye up to tear them down just as Pascal exalts and humbles. Of Mycroft I have little to say. I’m not as clever as they are or were but I should have known better too. I should have known better.

And I hate them for it. To spit this apple up would go against every desire of my being; to choke it down would be disgusting.

But I ate of it! And look at me now, the bitch of a hound of a tyrant whore.

When I told Dominic this they laughed, strangely joyously. One short sharp laugh, more of a “Ha!” than anything else, right to my face.

“And thou placest thyself with them. Hast thou not been chosen by This Universe’s God? Julia does so love her playthings; Pascal’s thumbscrews will cure thy delusions.”

Pascal was Julia’s favorite.

I was sitting on Dominic’s thumb-thin cot, still so uncomfortable with their sharp glare and archaic language and heavily-gendered attire, and, yes, their breasts—which Dominic themselves makes no secret of, and which their attire seems chosen to accentuate—that I scanned the spines of familiar books as I spoke, so that I cringed instead under the judgement of theologicians; Calvin, Akiva, J.E.D.D, and yes, Pascal. I had bought Julia a handbound copy of their _Pensées _for her birthday, hers until Dominic had slipped past the police cordon and plucked it for themself and placed it there for me to see, upside down on top of the _Cheng Weishi Lun_, next to my tracker.

They followed my gaze and smiled, still-healing face relishing my discomfort as they had when I’d walked into the room in Madame-compliant clothing.

Of course, I told them, I saw Pascal’s value, and understood that they intended to spiritually uplift. That didn’t mean I agreed with their methods, or that I wanted them used on me, or that I didn’t hate them. Dominc could explain Pascal for me if they wanted, though I doubted I’d get anything out of it. I was being snippy I knew but I hardly cared.

Dominic tapped the _Pensées_, hand still healing but with no less sharp a knock. “A fitting instrument for thine affliction. If thou hatest Pascal for their cruelty, dost thou hate Julia?”

I was taken aback, and more than a little indignant. It must have shown on my face, because they continued:

“Thinkest thou I am needlessly cruel? Thy tongue hath slipped, and made thy desire for instruction known. This,” they gestured, “is a civilized house, where Julia is understood to be a woman. Thou hast not wronged her by saying so.”

I did not; but of course Pascal would not have called their cruelty needless. Also, Julia would have been their Sensayer, and I couldn’t tell—

“Thou’st betrayed her with recordings, did’st thou not? I fucked her twice a week for years; was that not incestuous enough for you? If that sufficeth not, Julia is imprisoned and therefore not my Sensayer. Thou dost tremble at the mention of her name and sex,” and here they lowered themselves before me, as if to tie my shoes or kiss my hand, “but thou must speak it again. Thou must tell me of ‘her’.”

I knew they were right, but still I shuddered. That almost-kneeling reminded me of Julia. I saw her in Dominic’s willingness to cut, and I saw Dominic in her trimmed suits and nails, and Pascal and Madame’s long fingers in them both; Divine blessings turned to improper ends.

So I told them.

Julia was “she” to me, not because of her breasts or bearing but because she had asked me to think of her that way in one of our earliest sessions. It was our secret, mine and hers, intimate as knowing her deepest Beliefs but without the violation of the First Law, or, I thought back then, the danger.

That ‘she’ smoothed everything over as she ruined me. Ruined me again, I mean. I was broken, just completely nonverbal, nonfunctioning, after I’d had the nerve to claim myself a messiah by trading myself for someone who just went on to commit suicide anyways, and she put me back together with her ‘she’ inside me—a linchpin poisoned needle— and I didn’t know how to handle it. I still don’t. I was so stupid. Would she have proselytized to me if I hadn’t betrayed her, to bind me even tighter to her? It would have happened the same way: the intimate secret to draw me in, ensnaring me with both our vulnerabilities. I’m a Sensayer. I’m supposed to be strong.

There need to be rules about gender, and there need to be sexsayers; not like, well—what Julia did, but people trained to deal with this sort of thing who aren’t evil like Madame. I meant, they need to be more widely available, but also not widely available enough to make the whole gender mess boil over. Gender is like religion; it’s too dangerous to let out.

I found myself sniffling. Dominic had a hankerchief ready, black as everything else they wore, and waited for me to empty my nose and dab my eyes before I could speak. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and reminded myself that Dominic was raised with gender, and better equipped to understand it than me.

It felt like trusting in a Creator, having a Sensayer again. It still does, just a little; it’s easier to talk about when I remember being talked through it.

“Julia uncoveredeth a weakness in you. Thou despiseth weakness as doth Pascal, then?”

Only in myself.

She let her hair down in front of me. It was such a little thing—the kind of thing they teach in Sensayer training, a deliberate gesture to put people at ease, and we both knew that but it still meant something. To me I mean. That made it mean more, made it into a private secret between us. Once she asked me to put it up. I barely know what to do with my own hair, but she humored my fumbling hands and my eyes on the nape of her neck and told me she didn’t mind the touseled look once in a while. I thought she was just being nice, saying so because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, but the day I brought her that Pascal her hair just happened to come apart and she asked me to do it up again.

I missed the parallels: gender is like religon; personal and inflammatory and I said that already but I just keep coming back to that, fixating on it: Julia didn’t even have to fuck me to ruin me, just smile my way. I wish she had taken me, because then it would have been her fault, but I broke my oaths for tender looks.

I’d almost forgotten I stood Jamussa up. I wanted to know if Julia would know, and she did know and Jamussa didn’t deserve that, they were always so kind, but I couldn’t bring myself to care! Julia knew about me; Julia cared. That was all I wanted.

And yes, I wanted her! I wanted her to guide my hands over her body and kiss me and I wanted to kiss her back and fall asleep in her bed and touch her and taste her and that might be wrong but who could blame me for that wanting; for wanting to be wanted?

Dominic didn’t seem to understand my anguish. “I suppose Julia hath a certain allure.”

Oh? A “certain allure?” What do you know of my heart? But then, don’t you fuck like twenty “women” a week, Dominic?

Dominic took that as a compliment. “A flattering exaggeration, but it fails to account for the men. Sodomy, that most unnatural of vices, carries most fittingly its own sting of punishment. Many of them even come to enjoy it, all over themselves and their clothes and the floor.”

She took my shock for compliance and went on: “Their shame is righteous, and delicious. Thou wouldst not believe what godfearing men I’ve made lick their seed off the floor like beasts. Wouldst thou believe I had buggered Julia?”

The image came to me unbidden, obscene: Dominic’s slender fingers threaded through Julia’s dark hair; Julia’s face pressed to the very bed I was sitting on as Dominic drove herself deep inside her, thighs slick with pleasure.

“Anal stimulation,” I said, face burning, “is just, a way that, people, can choose to enjoy their bodies. Gender aside, you shouldn’t make it into a shameful painful thing!”

I could feel Dominic’s gaze on me, pinning me as surely as any weight.

“Dost thou think thou art the first Cousin in my instruction? All thy prepared objections are known to me. Tell me, Cousin Foster, when thy fingers slip within thyself, is it thy neutered ‘anal stimulation’ in thy sinless fantasies?”

My shame bloomed honest scarlet on my traitorous face; answer enough for both of us. But that was not enough for them. “Thy preferences are quite apparent. I’ve seen thy Julia, Thisbe, and thy sniperdoll. Thou kept copies of those recordings of Julia and I, for thine own private usage; how endearingly girlish.”

I know that sniperdoll doesn’t make me seem any more mature, but I’m not twenty anymore! I kept those recordings as evidence, Dominic. And I know I’m backsliding; I know that I must be special in some way, to be chosen by My Creator; I haven’t forgotten everything you’ve said, even if I keep making you repeat it; I’m sorry—but Dominic, you’ve slid me centuries too far!

“Doth not the fairer sex succumb more easily, Sister Carlyle? Thy shame is a flattering mark of thy womanhood; and Julia prefers to play her games with women.”

Don’t take advantage of the fact that Julia used gender to smear gender on me, Dominic. Julia never ‘succumbed’ to anything but the urge to take power a day in her life; Thisbe is female, and terrifying, and so are you. You can’t say women aren’t strong, and you can’t excuse half the population from their obligations because they might faint at the sight of a mouse.

Dominic smiled, lazy-sharp. “Am I not a man? Already thou dost weld thy womanhood, for were thou not a woman and my Parishoner I would see thee dead for that insult.”

Not a woman and your Parishoner? Either of those would see me safe from you, Dominic. Your <<blasphemeteuse>> still lives. Mentioning both is another way for you to assert your control over me, and don’t say you don’t know it.

“And shall I earn my ‘he’ as Julia 'put you back together with her ‘she’ inside you?'”

You said you wouldn’t rape me.

“Thou trusted me. And where has it gotten thee? Access to notre Maitre; all my sensayer’s expertise; into a brothel alone with a Blacklaw. Poor sweet innocent thing thou art, that thou didst overstep in seeking instruction.”

I said nothing.

“Back straight and head up, I see. Thou has thy mother’s poise.”

Setting aside your hair and period-accurate clothing, Dominic, you have breasts, and a woman’s voice. How can you call yourself a man with that mark of womanhood upon your chest?

“Thou art the teacher now, I see. Then thou desirest me to be a woman? ”

Well nothing else makes any sense in your stupid binary scheme! You have breasts; clearly you want them. Your condition is understood to be the result of some genetic differentiation thing or something so if you were a man you’d just have it fixed and get a dick grown and grafted on and be done with it! Why shouldn’t a woman carry a sword and duel, aside from the fact that nobody should stab anybody, or enter the priesthood, and don’t say nuns—nunneries aren’t monasteries and you know it! 

“What man doth use less than every tool available to him to its fullest? Thou allowest the Set-Sets; Madame raised me and poisoned me with guilt, that my sword would be more deadly. Likewise through my breasts am I reminded of the injustice of This Universe’s God, my purpose daily renewed and my teeth sharpened.” Dominic’s hand played on the hilt of their rapier, eyes half-lidded.

If you wanted to cut me with that you’d have done it already. I’m scared enough as it is, Dominic; fingering your sword is purely self-gratification. But well, isn’t that what “manhood” is all about? Posturing and threats and displaying your bosom?

“What do you know of manhood, Carlyle Foster? Should I not fight tooth and claw and breast and bloodied cunt, as a man? Thou insisteth my preconceptions blind me, but thou, hypocrite, hath gender and sex still tied in thy mind, and here’s the proof: thou gave Julia her ‘she’ because thou envisioned thy head between her legs, didst thou not? Thou withholdest my ‘he’ out of cowardice: since thou desirest me carnally, I cannot be a man.”

That’s sick and wrong, Dominic! You privilege the social and discount the biological. So I happen to be experiencing attraction; both of us know that the thought that I might pin you down and have my way with you is laughable. I’m a civilized person, and we have _theology_ to discuss—

“How many times hast thou tucked thy hair behind thine ears? Surely enough for one session. Thy face is red with arousal. Thou hast my scarf now, not Julia’s, and I myself administered thy first injection. Hast thou not already given thyself to me?”

I sat there like a beaten wife. Dominic walked around me, leering so intensely that I moved reflexively to cover myself. I could feel her gaze prickling my skin as he took his time savoring the sight of me, the way some people enjoy a dinner not yet devoured: down the small of my back, tracing up my thighs, along the line where my veil framed my face.

I kept my eyes fixed on the floor a little ways in front of me and shivered.

My hands stole down to fidget with my wrap but found only the starched-stiff white cloth of yet another indignity.

I’ve never been susceptible to vice. I took hallucinogens in Sensayer training; argued successfully before a committee for a temporary exemption from the normal Cousin substance-restriction laws because I knew firsthand understanding of a religious experience would help me serve and guide my parishoners. I’ve broken the Hive language taboo for the philosophers and theologicians in whose footsteps I’ve dedicated my life to walking. I like attention well enough, but I’m a Cousin, not a Humanist or Utopian; I like orgasms well enough but rarely pursue them. I’m a voker, and I thought nothing could ever distract me from my life’s work.

And yet.

Wearing that habit, I felt ridiculous and blasphemous and sick to my stomach and a flicker of _something; _something I didn’t have a name for stopping me from stripping naked when that honestly would have been preferable (and not even too out of place, at Madame’s).

Is there any wonder that the Nun has historically figured so prominently in pornography? A chaste woman, sworn to the contemplation of the Divine – and yet; a woman who debases herself in veneration of a male figure. Veneration. How appropriate it is that a goddess of desire should lend her name to such an act of supplication.

I don’t know how long I sat there, Dominic’s eyes licking over every inch of me. He’d left the room warmer than it had been for my last session, just like he’d left the Canner Device on his shelf to make me sign myself away, and he knew I knew.

Much went unsaid. Some of it I could only guess at; I’d taken the requisite Sensayer’s classes on body language but Dominic was a master.

I swallowed, thick saliva coating my throat. It only made me thirstier. When I opened my mouth a little salty bead of something had welled at one corner. It might have been sweat; it might have been tears.

But I kept my head down.

Eventually Dominic laughed their ridiculous laugh, reached under my chin, and pulled my head up by his scarf. I tried to meet his gaze as best I could. Whatever he saw there pleased him enough that he wound the ends of it all the way around, tucking them through before he released me.

“Session over. I’ll see thee tomorrow.”

“What?” I asked. “Not that I mind, but—“

“The heir apparent de la Tremoille ought to know how to behave in civilized company. Thine escort will pick thee up.”

I left the room in a daze. There was a little key on a bracelet he must have locked around my wrist; I slid it as high as I could get it beneath my wrap and crossed my arms as I waited for my car.


End file.
